


Shallow Wings, Borrowed Breaths

by nonx



Category: Original Work
Genre: Captivity, M/M, Mpreg, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 19:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12042231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonx/pseuds/nonx
Summary: Jack Sulliman was born in New York, and he should never have taken that hike. He never should have smelled like the way he did.And maybe—he shouldn't have run.





	Shallow Wings, Borrowed Breaths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tish/gifts).



> Tish, I really, really hope you enjoy. I couldn't quite resist, when I saw the tag tentacle monster/human male. Hope this tickles the captive fancy for you!

“Mind if I sit here?”

Jack startles, looking up. The newcomer pauses in midst of sitting down next to him, and raises his eyebrows.

“Sorry,” Jack says, and grabs his backpack from the seat next to him. His heartbeat slows as his feet settle down on the floor once more. He’s on the ground, he reminds himself.

“‘s fine,” the newcomer says, and settles down next to him. “Long flight?” he asks.

Jack barks out a laugh. “You could say that,” he says. “A long, long flight.” He’s got a longer one ahead.

 

* * *

 

 

The first was a bus ticket he’d purchased on a credit card. His hand wouldn’t stop shaking as he entered the number, the first 8 digits memorized and the second 8 digits carved into the inner side of his thigh with his nails. Each tap on the number pad felt loud, so loud, and he couldn’t calm himself down enough to stop sweating.

He was terrified that it could hear him. Or worse, smell him. The first few ever tries he made at running away, he kept getting caught because he couldn’t stop the wood from creaking. The next months after that, it was because of the smell.

There was something about the way Jack smelled. It told him that, from the very first day, its mouth on the pulse point right below Jack’s jawline, wet tongue licking away.

“Means something,” it kept murmuring at him, then hissing at him, holding him down as it forced his body open that night. “Your smell. It calls. Means _something_.” Again, again, again.

By the fifth month Jack’d figured out that his tears smelled, too. A few steps away from the next, he’d crumpled, trying to gather himself, both hands over his mouth in order to minimize the noise. But the tears were streaming down his cheeks, and it had taken only a few seconds of sniffing the air before it found Jack, hidden in the bushes.

By the fifth month, Jack’d been round, a bump in his lower belly. A bare miracle, that when he’d found the wallet a few feet away from the nest, his belly hadn’t been full. He was still himself. Just himself, and nothing else. He pressed hard on his thigh, enough to bleed, trying to memorize those last eight digits.

He didn’t board the bus. He bought another bus ticket, this time in cash, then didn’t board that one, either. Instead he crawled his way away from the nest and the town, endless farmlands stretched out beneath his two hands and two feet.

But oh, to feel the earth again.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack Sulliman was born in Wawarsing, New York. As a boy, he kept his feet on the ground and his head towards the sky, and as a young adult he survived some of the worst snowstorms of central New York. His parents didn’t have a farm, thank you, but they had a cow. He didn’t know how to ride a horse, but he was used to them enough.

Old enough, and rural enough to go out on the trails by himself. Old enough to be taken. Old enough to—

“You’re doing so well,” it had told him, soft brushes against his sweaty eyebrow. It wasn’t even putting its tongue anywhere near Jack’s skin, which was a testament to how much this moment meant to the monster. “So well, just a little bit more.”

“Please,” Jack had said, tears streaming down, and because he was a human boy, and he could never stop being a human boy, no matter what was being done to him, “fuck, _fuck_ you.”

“I know it hurts,” it had answered, and it had sounded _guilty_. In that moment, Jack hated second-most that the monster learned English, got better at it. Of course, in that moment, he hated most the pain that was consuming his entire body, nerve by nerve, cell by cell.  

The birth really was easy enough, Jack would reflect later, bitterly. It felt like his body was stretching and splitting open, the _things_ that had been inside him forcing their way out with as little disregard for Jack as their progenitor, and it had lasted an entire day and night. But afterwards, as Jack lay there exhausted to the bone, every inch of his skin aching, dehydrated from all the crying, even then, he knew he wasn’t bleeding. Other than the exhaustion, his body hadn’t been damaged.

His human body had adapted marvelously.

“My name is Jack,” Jack had said, to the ceiling, tiredly. Those days, he wasn’t sure if he was repeating it for the monster, or for himself. To remind himself. “I’m from fucking _New York_. I shouldn’t be—” giving birth to monsters. He was too tired to cry.

It had paused, right next to him, standing next to the bed that it had made for Jack. Jack got the feeling that it had to learn the concept of a “bed”, too, because of Jack.

“Don’t you want to see her?” it had asked, its movements undulating as if unsure. “Jack.”

Jack shouldn’t have told it his name. He closed his eyes against the light, but it had seemed to take that as a _yes_. Or concepts like consent didn’t really matter to it. Instead, Jack felt something warm and tiny and wiggling being placed, gently, on top of his body. The weight traveled up, until the warmth had tucked neatly underneath Jack’s chin.

He shut his eyes even harder, but then that only made the sensation worse, when it slowly slid its tongue down the side of his face.

“Her?” Jack had asked, without even realizing his mouth was opening. And worse: “one?” Because he could have sworn he felt, amidst all the pain—

The tongue stopped, then retreated back. Jack felt the monster place its cheek on Jack’s hair. “The other one didn’t survive,” it had said. And worse: “It’s okay, we’ll try again, later.” And the absolute, absolute worst: “It wasn’t your fault.” Gentle.

Jack can’t remember what he said in response. He can’t remember when he opened his eyes to look down at her, for the very first time. He’s mostly glad for it. But he does remember the voice of the monster, telling him _It wasn’t your fault_ , in words that were clear, even though the sound could never be mistaken for a human’s. Its tone, gentle as the breeze Jack could sometimes feel when he sat on top of the nest, looking down at the tree leaves. Gentle.

The monster got better at English, because of Jack. Because it needed to keep Jack on a better leash, it needed to keep Jack bound and hidden. Jack tries his best not to think about what the monster could possibly be thinking about, but he thinks _it_ thinks that it learned English, _for Jack_.

 

* * *

 

 

Two, though, gave Jack the chance, when the next time a group of humans came too close to the next, hiking in the forest because they’re old enough and rural enough but not dumb enough to do it alone, like Jack. To do it while smelling the way Jack does. Maybe the monster had gotten what it wanted, after the second birth. As much as it wouldn’t stop fucking Jack, even afterwards, it had other things to worry about, than Jack. Than the two bus tickets, and the long miles that Jack walked instead, anyways.

It was a long walk; it was a grueling walk. The entire time, he’d been terrified. After ten miles or so, he’d given up on being quiet or not sweating, and just scurried forward as fast as he could. As long as he could. Hands dragging on the Earth, lips moving in silent prayers that held no power. There’s still dirt left in his left fingernails, sitting here, in the airport. He can’t get them out.

The newcomer shifts next to him, as if he is surprised to be uncomfortable in these tiny airport seats. “When’s your next flight?” he asks.

It takes a moment for Jack to focus. He debates, but he finally says, “In about five hours.”

“That’s a very long time,” the newcomer says, “to wait.”

It’s been two days since Jack has crawled away from the nest. “It’s not that bad,” Jack says. He wonders if his words are slurred. He hasn’t spoken to anyone, in such a long time. He doesn’t even know how he’ll get from JFK, back to Wawarsing. He’ll fucking walk, if he has to.

“That’s not good for you,” the newcomer says, and the tone freezes Jack’s blood. Breath stops in Jack’s throat, refuses to get in or get out. He knows that tone. He knows that tone.

Long minutes pass, as Jack sits there frozen, as the newcomer seems perfectly happy to let him. Finally, slowly, Jack turns his head to glance at the newcomer, his chest moving in tiny rapid spasms.

The newcomer still looks human, still like a tired traveler like anybody else. But Jack can see the colors flicker across the pupils. Something wet, something inhuman but alive, slowly wraps itself around Jack’s ankle, a familiar weight. Jack can’t look down.

“This is really hard for me, Jack,” it says, and it sounds tired. “I’m so far from the trees.” It licks its lips, and Jack wonders distantly, in a detached part of his brain, how it put its wings away. How it made its tongue look like a human’s, when Jack has felt first-hand how long it can get, how snake-like, burrowing deep into Jack’s hole.

“How,” Jack wants to say, and more, _why_. The airport is full of people. Plenty of them, surely, could give the monster what it wants. Jack’s mind flashes, unwanted, to the wiggly tiny monsters, sprawled across the bark, feathers already beginning to sprout on their backs. The monster had been playing with them, and it had looked up to find Jack standing there, and its lips had twisted, into _something_. Jack couldn’t tell, what. The rope in his ankle tugged when he tried to move closer.

“But I had to find you,” it says, now, sitting next to him in the plastic chair. It says, almost ruefully: “These arms are so painful, I don’t know how you do it.” And, impossibly: “I’m so sorry it took so long to find you.” Gentle.

Jack can’t breathe. It moves closer, carefully, and Jack sees the arm coming for him, but he can’t move. The airport falls away, all around him, all those people and all those ceilings and earth gone, as if Jack is floating, high up in the nest all over again.

“I was worried about you,” the monster says. He sounds _scared_ , Jack thinks, he sounds like maybe how Jack must have sounded, way at the beginning. Terrified. “You don’t know how worried I was, about you. Anything could have happened to you.” The monster shivers, just a tremor, against Jack’s skin.

“Oh,” Jack says. He is bewildered. He feels slippery, as slippery as its tongue that he felt so many times, such countless times, such familiar times. “I,” he says, “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t think he means to say that, but once the words get said, they feel _right_.

“That’s okay,” the monster says. Its tentacles and wings tighten around him. “But you’re coming back? They’re waiting for you, you know.”

“Oh,” Jack says. He blinks away tears. He always seems to cry in front of it, but it feels like familiarity, like family, like safety, just now. It feels right. “Of course,” he says.

He looks up, for the first time. The newcomer’s human face is gone. Instead, Jack sees the bright silver eyes, watching him, the spotted feathers at the nape opening and closing, as if slightly agitated. One tentacle traces Jack’s eyebrow, gentle.

“Thank you,” the father of Jack’s children says, warmth and love in his voice. He smiles at Jack.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
